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Monday, April 30, 2012

Chlorine

Chlorine has been used to disinfect drinking water since the beginning of the twentieth century. Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer were rare before the twentieth century. They became the number one and number two killers by century’s end. Could chlorinated water be responsible? Very likely, it could. A more serious disease than either CVD or Cancer is stupid and corrupt leadership that refuses to listen or learn. Credible people have been warning authorities for years about the dangers of low-level chlorine exposure.

Stupidity is a much more difficult problem to solve than eliminating today’s most serious epidemics. Inertia rules. The health industry would be out of business if people were not sick, so changing anything is difficult. Health workers understandably fight for their jobs. Happily (but not for most of us), Nature provides the solution: things that can’t go on forever don’t. And neither will we go on forever doing what we do. Others are already taking our places.

Athletes must protect themselves. They can’t afford to wait for complacent authorities. Our "leaders" will wait forever to start using safe disinfectants. Athletes all use more water every day than sedentary people. Athletes shower more frequently; they sit in steam rooms breathing chlorine gas; they swim in chlorinated pools; and they drink more chlorinated water for adequate hydration during workouts. Athletes must use high quality filters to remove chlorine from water. Low-level chlorine is an insidious killer. Athletes may be strong, but they are not invincible. Disease may appear years later. "Old Age" will be blamed. Adult athletes and parents of young athletes must take control of what they can: insist swimming pool and gymnasium operators install filters on water lines and use modern ozone disinfection for swimming pools.

Of course it can be argued by our “leaders” that simple solutions cannot solve complex problems and things really are as good as they can be. Even if chlorine is a problem we don’t have very much typhoid fever anymore. Cardiovascular disease and cancer employ hundreds of thousands of people and disease is the foundation of some great fortunes. People can run across the country to raise money to fight cancer. Running to raise money to fight disease is a very popular activity. Everyone can feel good about doing something to help. The disease-fighting industries are handsomely rewarded. Best of all, our “leaders” themselves have really nice jobs with indexed pensions and fringe benefits. Everything is just dandy for them. Somehow, solutions remain elusive.